Macabre Raiders
by DarkMoonRabbit
Summary: Separated from those they love, Zuko and Katara team up together to fight for survival as they battle Fire Nation soldiers, Earth Kingdom assassins, and hordes of the walking dead. Rated for graphic violence and gore.


**A/N: **Something I wrote because I was bored and also to take a slight break from Critical Point. Not sure how long this is going to be but it's probably not going to be very long. The plot is a lot more straightforward. I wanted to write something that combined my two loves: Zutara and zombies.

That being said, yes, this is a zombie fic. Yes, there is **GORE. **Lots and lots of gore. C'mon, zombies and gore is like milk and ice cream. Yes, it's possible to separate the two but you won't get the same awesomeness as the original mix. So if you are squeamish, you might want to go elsewhere. Or if you are squeamish and want to stick around, please feel welcome to. /gives bucket.

Enjoy! o/

**Disclaimer: **Avatar: the Last Airbender and characters belong to Bryke and Nickelodeon and all kinds of people I'm not associated with, I just write because it's fun.

* * *

Part I: Outbreak of Ba Sing Se

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The only sound breaking the stillness of the night was that of her heavy breathing and her feet slamming into the ground. Yes, the forest was much too still when only moments ago the trees would be teeming with the melodies of nocturnal creatures. Now there were no frogs, no crickets, no owls or mice playing predator and prey. At this moment, she was probably the only living being in this entire region.

It wasn't supposed to happen in Ba Sing Se. That's why they had built it. The vast impenetrable walls kept the citizens safe for the past hundred years ever since the initial outbreak. Somehow, someone - a _Carrier_ - had managed to get in. It should have been impossible considering that any outsider seeking refuge in Ba Sing Se had to undergo several blood tests before qualifying for their passports. The sea horse of Serpent's Pass prevented anyone from crossing that jagged strip of land over the lake and into the city. Ba Sing Se was completely secure from any outbreak.

Something crashed in the underbrush not far behind her. With a sound that would have been scream if not for her constricted throat, she urged her body to move faster, panic swelling in her chest and her heart on the verge of bursting. Small branches snapped against her face and tore through her clothes and skin. The chilly night air ripped into her lungs. A little while back, she had lost her shoes and the soles of her feet bled from the small rocks and pieces of bark digging and tearing into her. The pain from all these tiny scrapes and open wounds was terrible but much, much worse would be in store for her if she slowed down in the slightest.

They were right behind her.

Ba Sing Se had been secure against any outbreak until a few short hours ago. She was shocked at how everything changed from peaceful to gory chaos in a matter of mere seconds. She had only been trying to sell flowers in the market square, as she had done every day since she was a little girl. Some people had bought flowers, and some hadn't, it really all depended on the mood of the general public. It was all right so long as she made enough to help keep food on the table. Life in the Lower Ring was difficult but not entirely unhappy. And today seemed a particularly good day. More people were buying flowers than they had been for the past two weeks.

She had seen a man stumbling along the street, but considering it was early evening and drunks were common in the Lower Ring, she hadn't thought much about it. Until that man bumped into one of the shopkeepers preparing to pack away his produce for the night. Mr. Yin was the shopkeeper's name. He was a good man, a gentle giant of a man. He would always buy flowers if it turned out to be a bad day for her. His large eyes blinked when he looked at the drunk, beefy hands taking the man by the shoulders. "Ye all right thar, buddy? Ya look like ya could use some soberin' up, ya?" Yes, that's what Mr. Yin had said. Something kind, like he always had. Always willing to help out. Always…

The drunk had opened his mouth. She had watched the entire ordeal as if it had been played before her in slow motion. The sickly looking smaller man who had stumbled into Mr. Yin had opened his mouth and sank yellow, rotting teeth into Mr. Yin's thick neck. A scream unlike anything she had ever heard before from a person split the air and had been silenced much too quickly. Red sprayed everywhere. Bright, bright red dancing against the night sky like the koi with long pluming tails dance in the fountain at the Ring's center.

It had been a chain reaction from there, a domino effect of walking death. Several onlookers had jumped on the drunk only to be bitten themselves. Mr. Yin's wife tried to tend to her dead husband only to have her guts torn right out of her stomach by his own hands. Frozen in place, she had watched as the people she had known all her life suddenly start killing each other. And then they had turned on her-

A scream ripped out of her when she tripped and slammed to the forest floor. "NO!" If she stopped moving… if she stopped moving… !

Three of them burst from the brush, blood and saliva gushing from their decaying jaws as they closed in on their prey. "No, no _please!" _she shrieked, trying to back crawl away until she could get back on her feet. She screamed again when a cold dead hand latched onto her ankle. "No, STOP, _HELP ME SOMEBODY, HEL-!" _

The air exploded with heat. The cries of the dead were drowned by the roaring inferno consuming them. She felt a hand, warm and alive this time, grabbing her shoulder and yanking her away. She had barely taken a breath to calm herself when she was staring into the eyes of a tall, dark, masked stranger. His golden eyes pierced deeply into hers. "Are you all right?" he asked.

No, she wasn't all right! Her city, her home, just had an outbreak when they had been assured again and again that such a thing wouldn't happen, that tales of the walking dead were nothing more than just that - tales to scare the children from staying out too late! She had nearly been eaten by one of those terrible creatures! She was alone, scared, and she really had to go to the bathroom! Instead, she just nodded. She was on the verge of a breakdown but she didn't have it in her to say a word.

"Stand back."

She thought the fire had taken care of those things, but she turned around only to discover she was very wrong. The burning monsters groaned and hobbled about to and fro as the fire ate at their rotting flesh but could not hurt them. The stranger charged forward and there was a flash as the light bounced off the pair of blades he withdrew. Another flash, a sound like metal slicing through meat that she would hear whenever she went to the butcher's, and two decapitated corpses fell to the ground. "Look out!" she exclaimed when the third pounced on her rescuer.

_Shink! _A spear made completely of ice sliced through the creature's head, halving it cleanly and spraying rotten brains and juices. "Are you okay?" a voice asked and she jumped when she saw a teenage girl suddenly standing next to her. The girl also wore a mask, the same dark outfit as the man, and had these strange hair loopy looking things, a hair style she had never seen before in Ba Sing Se. Again, she nodded, but only because it felt like the appropriate thing to do.

"We can introduce ourselves later, we gotta go," the other said, pulling his mask down to wipe the gore from his face. She saw that he was also just a teenager and the left side of his face was horribly scarred. Yet very handsome, regardless. Groans and forlorn cries of the walking dead stole her attention from him, however. Her eyes widened when it dawned on her just how many of them had been chasing after her.

"They're getting faster," the girl remarked with a sigh.

"Which is why getting the hell out of here is a really good idea," the boy snapped. Well, he sounded pleasant. "Let's go."

She would have moved as she was told until another one of the dead came charging from the trees and straight for her, arms and legs carrying it along the ground at a breakneck speed like a grotesque humanoid spider. She froze in place as she stared at the horrible creature, its white pulpy eyes staring back at her without seeing, only following its raw hunger. An ice spear slammed through its skull, pinning it to the ground. A broadsword severed its head.

"_MOVE IT!" _the boy shouted.

The girl grabbed her hand and the three started running for it. Attracted by all the noise and the putrid scent of blood thickening in the air, corpses wandered out from the amongst the trees, moaning excitedly. The boy ran in front, taking down whatever dead got in the way, carving a bloody path. The girl continued to cling to her hand and used her other to waterbend ice spears from her pouch, piercing any dead that wandered too close.

She couldn't keep up. Her feet were coated with hot blood and beginning to slide against the grass. Her panicked cries increased when she realized she was losing this fight to maintain her balance and keep up with the strange pair. Her foot caught underneath a root, tearing her hand from the girl's as she went plummeting to the ground with a desperate scream. "Zuko, wait!" the girl cried racing back to her.

"Oh, you've got to be _kidding _me!"

"My feet," she sobbed. They throbbed with burning agony. She tried to take a step only to scream again when blinding pain shot from the bottom of her foot straight to her brain.

"Come on!" the girl cried, trying to pull her to her feet again.

"I can't!"

The air sizzled with heat as fireballs shot overhead slamming into the oncoming corpses trying to surround them. "Katara! Do something already!" The dead were hesitating at the sudden appearance of the fire but they wouldn't hesitate for long, especially when they were creatures immune to pain.

"We have to go!" the girl - Katara - yelled at her.

"I can't," she whimpered, the pain so unbearable she couldn't stand at all. "I can't…"

"You _have _to!"

"You think it's gonna be any better when those things get a hold of you?" the boy - Zuka? Zuno? Zuzu? - snapped at her. "If you think it hurts so bad, fine. Stay here, then."

"Zuko, _shut up!" _

She was caught off guard when Katara pulled her onto her back. "We're not going to abandon you here," Katara promised her. "We're going to make it out of this." That Zuko guy snorted disdainfully in response. Katara ignored him and took off running with Zuko not far behind. She was slightly amazed at how strong Katara seemed and how fast the girl could run even with her on her back. Katara looked so small and lithe, like a water fairy who shouldn't be able to able to lift much more than the water she manipulated.

With one hand, Katara took care of the dead in front with her ice spears while Zuko covered their back with his fire blasts and deadly precise swings of his broadswords. She noticed that the number of the dead began to dwindle until maybe one or two stumbled out every couple of minutes. The trio came to a river where a several small fishing boats anchored to the shore bobbed gently against the current. Zuko helped Katara pull her onto one of the boats and then lifted the anchor as Katara used water to push the boat into the river.

"They can't swim?" she whispered as Katara jumped in next to her.

"Well, they can't but they can't drown, either," Katara answered, and then knelt down to tend to the girl's torn feet, coating water on her hands. "This may sting a little. I'll be as gentle as possible."

"They're attracted by noise and fresh blood," Zuko pointed out. He pulled a rag from his pocket to clean the black blood off one of his broadswords. "So long as we keep quiet and just let the current take us, we shouldn't be followed."

"At least we're safe now," Katara added. "I'm Katara and this guy is-"

"Zuko," she interrupted and flushed when the other two stared at her. "Um, that's what I heard you call him." They exchanged glances. If his name was supposed to be something significant, she had no idea so to break the obvious tension coming over their little boat, she continued, "And I'm Rika. Nice to meet you."

She shivered and Katara wrapped her jacket around her. One advantage of being a long distance fighter was that her clothes didn't get blood-soaked like Zuko's. "Thank you," Rika whispered, now shivering more from the shock settling in than actually being cold. "I can't believe… they told us this could never happen. That it's all just a fairy tale, scary stories. Now everyone's dead. Or-"

All three cringed when a scream of agony erupted from the forest as another poor soul met his fate at the rotting hands of walking corpses. Rika covered her ears, pushing her forehead against her knees. "They're all dead, they're all dead, they're all-"

"No, they're not," Katara said firmly, taking Rika by the arms and forcing the girl to look at her. "We're alive, aren't we? Others will be, too. We're going to get out of this, one way or the other."

A tear swelled and rolled down Rika's cheek and then another. "You should have left me with those things," she whispered, lips trembling. "It would be better than seeing this."

"You want us to push you overboard? We can do that."

"Zuko!" Katara hissed and Rika shrank back in the jacket around her.

"Katara, if this girl's going to be baggage, then we need to get rid of her," Zuko shot back. "My uncle is in there and I'm going to go get him! I am not about to jeopardize my uncle's survival by hanging with some little girl who doesn't have the guts to fight to stay alive. If she wants to die so bad, then let her."

Katara smiled sweetly at Rika. "Could you excuse us for a second, honey?" Then Katara stood to her feet, grabbed Zuko by the arm and yanked him over to the other side of the deck. "You can at least be a little sensitive, you know," she hissed at him.

He tugged his arm out of her grasp. "You can't deny it," he shot back.

"That girl just lost everything she had in a few short hours," she pointed out. "You can't tell me we both don't know what that feels like. I know you're worried sick about your uncle. You can at least have a little empathy for the people going through the same thing. But if you really insist on being a heartless bastard, then do us all a favor and keep it to yourself."

Zuko glared at her, and the look was so intense Katara thought he might strike her. Before she could get into a defensive stance, he just crossed his arms over his chest, scowling as he looked away. "Whatever. Do what you want. Just don't expect me to save her if she gets into trouble."

"Thank you," Katara replied, but the words came out stiff and without an ounce of sincere gratitude. Almost slapping him in the face with her long hair, she whirled around and went back to Rika, leaving the insensitive jerk to sulk behind her.

\\\

Katara had been stuck in the crystal catacombs with Zuko when the outbreak, well, broke out. When she had first seen him in that adorable little tea shop earlier today, she thought dealing with him again had been the biggest problem. Then it turned out that his horrible sister, Azula, had infiltrated the royal court with her two lackeys disguised as Kyoshi Warriors and then she thought that had been the biggest problem. They had tossed her in the crystal catacombs to rot, and then gave her some company about twenty minutes later when they had tossed Zuko in with her. It was difficult to decide whether being alone with him or fighting the dead was the biggest problem of all.

Turned out that Zuko wasn't really much of a talker. Not that Katara had really given him room to speak as she ranted and raved about how terrible the Fire Nation was and how the outbreaks were all their fault and how ridiculous Zuko looked in brown - which kind of came to her mind at the last second and definitely didn't matter but she was angry and wanted to insult him in any way possible. And why not? All Zuko had done for the greater part of the past year was follow her and her friends all over the world, trying to capture and very much possibly destroy Aang. _No one _touched Katara's family and got away with it, especially when it came to Aang who meant more to her than anyone else in this world.

Zuko hadn't bothered to try to defend himself during her entire tirade, which had struck her as a little unnerving. There was no way someone as heartless and reckless and had such bad taste in clothing could possibly feel _guilty _or _responsible _for the things he had done to them. Not after so much, after so long. And he didn't seem happy or content working for his uncle in that little teashop, that had just been her imagination, hadn't it?

There hadn't been time to speculate on such matters. Because that had been when _they _broke through the walls of the catacombs.

There was no longer any need to speculate over friends and enemies when the two of them were probably the only ones actually breathing in the city. Who knew how long ago the outbreak had occurred that the dead started wandering into the catacombs? Knowing that working together was their only chance of survival, Zuko and Katara had fought their way to one of the entrances to the catacombs deep in the forest. A hunter's cabin not too far away had supplied them with dark clothing to better blend into their surroundings (because there were more than just the blind dead to worry about out there) and some food. Katara had found a large pouch to hold her bending water. The broadswords Zuko found weren't the same style he usually used, but they worked.

Katara knew that the rest of the gang had split from Ba Sing Se earlier that afternoon, but Zuko's uncle Iroh was still there and the prince was determined to go back there and get him out. Katara had decided to go with him. Not because she was going to rely on him for her survival, _oh no. _But who knew what trouble the sneaky little Fire Nation prince was going to cause so she wasn't about to let him out of her sight for a second.

Katara stood at the edge of the boat, filling her pouch with water. She couldn't bend back any of the ice spears she used for the water in them became contaminated with the infection once they hit their target. The pouch was large enough to carry about half a gallon but she would still have to be conservative with her supply. And it was heavy. "Damn," she muttered under her breath. "I might have to pick up a weapon, after all."

"Katara?"

She turned to see Rika standing behind her. The girl shuffled her feet and hugged Katara's jacket closer to her. "The two of you are going back to the city, aren't you?"

Katara gave her a gentle smile. "Soon as we drop you off somewhere safe."

Rika shook her head. "No place is safe."

"Hey, it's o-"

"I want to go with you."

"Huh?"

"I've been giving it a lot of thought," Rika went on. "That guy was right. Right now I'm just baggage."

"Zuko?" Katara snorted, rolling her eyes. "Don't listen to anything that guy says."

"No. I agree. You two saved my life and I can't repay you if I'm just a burden. I have family back in the city, so I should go check up on them, anyway."

"But you don't have a weapon."

"A blow to the head is all that's needed to finish them off, right? I remember seeing that happen a few times when the outbreak first started. I remember every little detail of what happened…" Her voice wavered. "Everything…"

"You don't have to do this."

"_Yes, I do!" _

Katara was taken aback. This seemingly quiet girl they had rescued was much more assertive than she had thought. "Oh. Okay. If that's what you really want to do."

"Use this then," Zuko spoke up, suddenly standing behind them and handing Rika one of his broadswords. "These aren't dual swords so the weight is awkward for me. It'll be better if I only have one."

"Thank you," Rika said softly, taking the sword from him. "I've never used a sword before but I'll try my best."

"Tch. Just don't get in the way." And with that, Zuko retreated back to his side of the deck.

"That guy-" Katara mumbled, eyes narrowing.

"-is actually kinda cool, isn't he?" Rika finished with a giggle.

"What?" Katara exclaimed, staring at Rika in shock. "There is nothing cool about him! He's inconsiderate, selfish, arrogant, obsessive, a complete jerk, and he just gave a sword to a girl who doesn't even know how to use one. You're more likely to cut your fingers off than a corpse's head!"

Rika continued to laugh. "You know, you kinda sound like me a few months ago. I… felt the same way about someone I knew, too."

"Who?"

"My boyfriend."

Katara opened her mouth, closed it, and then opened it again, repeating this process several times as she tried to force out words that didn't want to go anywhere. Finally, she just let out a frustrated growl. "Just go back to jumping at your own shadow until we reach the city, all right?"

\\\

The key to maneuvering around the dead was to be quiet. Noise and the scent of fresh blood attracted them. Bright light drove them away, only for a few seconds, but seconds that could mean either survival or corpse feed. Rika no longer complained about being barefoot now that Katara had healed her feet.

It was devastating how the streets of the once great Ba Sing Se now were nothing more than a wasteland of death, gore, and garbage. They needed to find their way to the Upper Ring, where Katara had been staying and where Iroh's teashop was located. "If you two come from the Upper Ring, how did you manage to get all the way out into the forest?" Rika asked softly.

Zuko and Katara exchanged glances because, honestly, that was a really good question and they weren't sure of the answer, either. "Sir Crispy here thought we were taking a shortcut when the dead attacked," Katara finally explained.

"Don't pin this on me!" Zuko growled, struggling to keep his voice low. "And don't call me _Crispy!" _

"Yeah, Katara, you shouldn't make fun of his scar like that," Rika added. "It's kinda mean."

"Fine, fine, I was only teasing anyway," Katara muttered. Except she wasn't. Not really. But why should she care about his feelings? It wasn't like he had any.

"Anyway, we shouldn't talk so much," Zuko snapped. "We'll attract attention."

Keeping as quiet as possible, the trio stayed close to the walls and the shadows as they moved through the Lower Ring, watching wearily as the dead wandered aimlessly this way and that, some slamming into walls, others leaning down to chew on bloody limbs littering the ground. All the while their pitiful, drawn out moans echoed in the night.

"We're not going to kill them?" Rika whispered.

"There's too many," Katara answered. "You learn that it's always better to just pick your battles with them."

"You sound like you've fought these things before."

Katara watched as a large man slammed into a smaller woman. With a groan, the creature that had one been a man sank its teeth into the female's neck. The female fell to the ground, its head hanging from the neck by only strips of skin. Realizing that it wasn't the living prey it had thought, the dead thing spat the pieces of flesh out of its mouth and moved on. A minute later, the female pulled itself back to its feet, continuing its wanderings while its head bobbed at an impossible angle against its shoulder. "This is what the world is like outside the walls," Katara explained softly. "Zuko and I don't come from Ba Sing Se. We've been fighting these creatures for years. In fact, they've been around for almost a hundred years now."

Rika gasped, though she managed to keep her voice low as she did so. "How is it, I mean, there's just…"

"How did the rest of the world managed to stay alive all this time?" Katara finished for her with a small smile. "Well, we've managed."

"Cycles," Zuko added. "These things happen in cycles. An outbreak occurs, humans hole themselves up until it passes, and then life seems to return to normal until the next outbreak."

"But how do these outbreaks happen then?"

Zuko stopped so suddenly the other two almost bumped into him. "Outbreaks are caused by Carriers, people who carry this - sickness - but aren't effected by it."

"Yeah, they were in the stories, too. But how-?"

"Do I look like the guru of all things dead!" Zuko snapped, whirling on her. "Stop asking so many questions and just go with it, okay?"

"Would you keep it down?" Katara hissed, pinching his ear. "Who's the one who said noise attracts their attention!"

"Don't touch me, peasant."

"Oh, I'm sorry, Zuko, am I getting dirt on your royal ear?"

Their bickering stopped when Rika started giggling again. "You two seem really close," she remarked, wiping a tear from her eye.

"Oh, do we?" Katara replied before Zuko could say a word, her voice extra sweet. "Well, we have known each other for a while, haven't we, Zuko? Wherever we went, you were always there with us, weren't you?"

"I hope you get bitten," Zuko growled at her.

"See? That's how he shows his affection."

Their conversation came to a stop when a corpse that used to be a Dai Li agent with its entrails hanging out of its hole of a stomach and a missing arm passed directly in front of Zuko. The three went completely still, hardly daring to even breathe. The corpse also paused and with several cracks of its vertebrae turned its head almost 180-degrees to stare at them. A long wheezing moan escaped from its mouth, barely more than just a rotting hole in the middle of its face. If the three of the them stayed quiet and moved slowly, perhaps there would be a way around the creature.

The corpse let out a cry, showering Zuko with blood and teeth and lunged forward. "Shit!" In one shift motion, Zuko leaned back to avoid getting his face bitten into, jabbed his broadsword into the thing's mouth penetrating straight through the skull, and jerked upward, slicing the brain from beneath. Well, so much for being quiet.

As the Dai Li corpse toppled lifeless to the ground, more of the dead started advancing toward them. "I thought you healed that girl's feet!" Zuko shouted.

"I did! Completely!" Katara yelled back. No sense in being quiet now that the dead were onto them anyway.

"Then how did they know we were here!"

"Probably because of _your _big mouth, big mouth!"

"Nnn, you guys, we should really do something!" The corpses had them almost surrounded, arms reaching for them as they chomped their teeth in anticipation for fresh meat. A fire blast from Zuko's palm blew a hole in the gathering crowd.

"This way!"

They took off running again, any of the dead coming too close meeting a more permanent end as Zuko's sword or Katara's ice speared sliced their heads off, in half, into pieces, whichever worked at the time. With Zuko's other broadsword, Rika managed to nick a few in the arms or the chests, the neck of one which squirted blood on her and nearly made her shriek at how cold that felt.

"Look! There!" Katara pointed to a building that still looked to be in one piece. "We can barricade ourselves in there!"

Another shot of flame held the monsters back long enough for the three to race inside and slam the door. Zuko and Katara shoved a table in front of the door to further keep its hold. One meager table wouldn't do it, but luckily there were plenty more where that came from. "I don't believe it," Zuko breathed and then snorted. "It's our old teashop."

"Old?" Katara repeated, helping him put another heavy table with the first one. "Just how long were you two in Ba Sing Se?"

"A while."

The dead slammed against the door again and again, but their little barricade of tables piled upon tables held. For now, at least. But the pair knew from experience that barricades and forts never lasted very long. After all, the dead had an eternity to be persistent. "We can sneak out the back way," Zuko said. "As long as they think we're in here, we can go find a more secure place to rest."

Katara noticed that Rika hadn't said much at all since they ran into the shop. "Hey, are you okay?" she asked, kneeling down next to the girl who sat slumped against the wall.

"I'm fine," Rika replied with a tiny smile, but Katara saw that she was gripping Zuko's broadsword so hard her knuckles were white. "Just tired. I'm not used to so much excitement."

Katara placed her hands on the other girl's. "It's going to be okay. You're doing great." She frowned a little. "You're hands are freezing."

"It… I guess I'm just that freaked out."

"Let's get going, you two," Zuko snapped, walking toward the back of the shop. "We can all cuddle later."

"Like I'd let you cuddle me," Katara muttered under her breath.

"What?"

"Nothing~"

A large slam of the door shook the entire building. The tables creaked beneath all the weight pushing against it. One toppled to the floor with a _bang!_ and a few wobbled dangerously. Definitely time to leave.

Problem was that when Zuko opened the back door, more of the dead were slowly advancing toward them from across the street, attracted by the noise. "Fuck," Zuko hissed, slamming the door again. "We just can't seem to get a break, can we?"

When both benders raised their hands to fight these things off and Zuko prepared to kick down the door for a quick surprise attack, Rika suddenly stepped out in front of them, placing her hand on the knob. "Wait. I'll go out there first."

"Rika?"

"I thought so," Zuko growled, lowering his hands. "That's why they were suddenly attracted to us. You were bitten, weren't you?"

Katara stared in disbelief as Rika pulled up her sleeve to reveal the wound on her upper arm, a blackened bite mark eating away at the skin almost down to her elbow. "It was before I met you guys. I thought I had managed to get away," she whispered, then burst out coughing, blood dribbling down her chin.

"Rika!"

Zuko grabbed Katara's arm to keep her from getting too close. "Let her go."

"You _can't _be serious! We can't just-!"

"It's okay, Katara," Rika wheezed out. "I should have told you sooner but I really wanted to help you out." She handed Zuko the broadsword. "Thank you. You actually are pretty cool, you know."

Zuko blinked in surprise and started to blush a little but then Rika doubled over, coughing harder. Blood gushed from her mouth this time as well as a few teeth, splashing on the floor. Her brown hair draped over her whitening eyes as she looked at Katara. "Kata…ra. Thank… you… so much."

Rika grabbed the door and ran out to meet the oncoming dead. Katara began to shake, tears in her eyes, but Zuko placed his hands on her shoulders to steady her. She needed to be steady.

So that her aim would be perfect.

This wasn't the first time she had to do such a thing, but that didn't mean she ever got used to it. No one could get used to such a nightmare. Each time she granted this mercy, she prayed that she would never have to do it again, despite always knowing in her heart that she would in the near future.

There would be time for tears later. Plenty of time.

With a cry, Katara sent an ice spear flying, extra sharp just for her. It flew straight and true and ripped through the ligaments, muscle, and the very bone in Rika's neck, tearing her head clean off. The fountain of fresh, warm blood from a still living body shot into the lightening sky as if greeting the dawn. The corpses were on her body before it even collapsed to the ground, and a few went for her head, all like flies to honey. Even a few speedsters from streets away raced for the new meal. The pair at the door were completely forgotten, which was just fine because neither of them could move or tear their eyes away at the horror of watching someone they had just met get torn to pulpy shreds.

"Come on," Zuko finally whispered, mostly because if he spoke any louder he was going to vomit. The two snuck away down the street, leaving the corpses to their feast as the sun rose to shine over the bloody ruins of the once unconquerable Ba Sing Se.

**End 1**


End file.
